OR.....

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He’s rented a business building, where he’ll build the first few games (at first just with he and another guy). He plans to have all EAs made whole upon finishing 400-500 games by the end of next year (it didn’t sound like a firm number was in place yet regarding if they’ll make 2 new money games, and then an EA game, or anything along those lines...he’ll have to get final parts numbers first) He seems to think there’ll be plenty of demand for 4-500 games at $12,500.

So after the first few games he'd move to a bigger facility and hire more workers to assemble the games? Or hire another contract mfr?

It sounded like he was going to hire people as needed as production is getting ramped up...didn’t sound like a new contract manufacturer was going to be involved. He did mention possibly using ARA again for parts only, not manufacturing though

Oh yeah, that’ll happen, DP will make 500 pinball games in 60 weeks. Bullshit. Doesn’t Spooky only do 10 games a week, with a dedicated factory and 15 employees or something?

I only listened to 15 minutes of it when I realized none of those dudes were going to ask really hard questions or call Barry out on the previous major lies.

Exactly what I was coming in to say. If they don't have at least a Spooky sized group making games, they will not make 500 games in a year.

Disclaimer - I have NO horse in this race. Never put a deposit on TBL, don't have any personal friends who were EAs, nor will I be buying one. The theme just never interested me.

That's NOT what Barry said (and yes, I listened to the entire interview). He said that after building approximately 500 games, that's the point at which all EAs would have their games.

The intent is to sell some games, then deliver a smaller fraction of EA games. He needs to do this for cash flow purposes. This cycle will continue and as he gets further along, the number of games sold vs. games delivered to EAs will decrease.

So, along the way of building 500 games, ~315 or so will be sold and ~185 EA machines will be delivered. (numbers approximated)

So he just has to find 315 12.5k additional deposit early achievers. Easy piesy!

Remember... pinball is easy!

Actually... barry assembling games doesn't scare me. He's been the hands on SME for both ARA and China. He built the prototypes. So he has to be the most knowledgable person available to actually build a game. The problem is TIME and scale.

One guy can't get the work done quickly. When you don't get things done quickly... overhead costs pile up. When overhead piles up, it destroys your margins. Low margins, plus low volume = running out of money.

He's gotta pay to keep the lights on and a roof over his head. He'll have to pay help to do things. He'll have to source parts in bulk up front. You can't trickle product out at such low rates and keep ahead of expenses.

Making $6k on a game sounds great... but if it took 3 weeks.. and my rent and utilities are 5k a month... and if I can only sell 1.5 games a month.. 108k in gross margin a year, but 60k in rent alone! So rent+utils alone is eating 55% of my margin. Contrast if I can build and sell 30 games a month... that's 2.1m in gross a year and rent is down to less than 3% of my margin.

The trick is spending enough to boost your productivity to get your volume up... without drowning yourself in debt. And all that assumes you can actually SELL what you built.

500 games at 12.5k? It's in the realm of 'possible' I think.

Two guys building 500 pinball machines? I think that's in the red for sure. Two guys building 10... and then seeing where to go from there? Sure... but that overhead noose is always hanging there...

So would the hand-built-by-Barry games being built now be worth more or less than the original batch? Or the same? What about the China prototypes? How many of those are there and are they going that route once the ARA Parts run out?

This whole thing is confusing.

Aside from the big holes in Barry’s plan, two things surfaced during Alien production that will sink DP fast. 1) having a problem prone game and insufficient parts/ assemblies for warranty or purchase and 2) insufficient communication with customer or unresponsive customer service. The quality of the game and ability to keep it running are of upmost importance to someone spending $12.5k. Those issues need to be addressed head on, but don’t think they will get the attention needed because the organization is too lean and money is too tight. I can’t look away from this story though, it is incredible.

Tell that to the magic girl buyers... or the countless people who have bought aliens AFTER HWP blew up.

Missing from your critical lessons program was Andrew flat out LYING TO EVERYONE and setting up promises he couldn't deliver on... all while robbing peter to pay paul.

Andrew communicated plenty... the problem was it was all shit coming out of his mouth. He couldn't warranty stuff because he had already burnt all his bridges and no one would give him an inch anymore... except those who didn't know the truth. And he was just trying to extract cash from those who didn't know the truth.

Maybe there’s a new niche for pinball tourism: visit the Netherlands, build your Lebowski, fly it home...

did Barry mention who would be supplying TBL playfields moving forward ?

Totally agree.

Thanks for posting this. I listened to all 2 hours of it.

I noticed lots of awkward pauses (among the 3 of them) and nervous laughter over 2 hours...

I'll let someone else bullet point and summarize the key points.

If you were hoping to hear a heart-felt apology, this may not be the podcast you were looking for.

Hmmm...

Not to mention all of those Vacations and holidays they will be taking...

Just more negativity that serves no purpose at this point.

You can say a lot of things about this situation, but the Europeans have the holiday/vacation thing down a LOT better than us.

We have somehow been tricked into thinking this is a weakness of some sort and demanding fewer holidays and vacation.

Look at me chuckling at the Dutch having so much time off!! Suckers!

I want more paid holidays and vacation time, I too don't understand why Americans make fun of people that have a better work/life balance than us.

This interview is a disgrace. The hosts completely softball it and don't ask any hard questions and even say things like "I understand if you don't want to answer..." Why not ask where all the money went? How much salary have they taken? This was a joke.

I moved from France to the Bay Area, and despite everything I thought arriving here, I've never seen people take that many days off as I have since I'm here !

Coming from France where you have
mandated breaks
mandated max working hours per day
mandated max working hours per week (35)
mandated minimum annual leave (5 weeks!)

I think most will have a hard time appreciating your comment.

Here people just hope for overtime pay.. hope for paid vacation at all.. and most really have no limits on hours per week or over a longer period.

Mandated ?? That is simply not true. I'm sorry but you really need to learn more about the work regulations in France, because you are wrong about all the above.

Sounds like a lot of Horse Shit n Gun Smoke to me

I'm not - you work more you can get overtime, but then you start hitting the consecutive limits as well, which must be compensated with overtime or extra days off. Annual leave is labor law, etc. Federal holidays are labor law. You can have collective bargining which changes the numbers around, but it can't reduce the benefits to the worker.

Recognize that most salaried workers here in the US don't even have a right to overtime at all.. let alone mandatory paid leave. Those are at the discretion of the employer except in government jobs and other exceptions that have been carved out.

I used to manage staff expected to cover 24/7 devOps including teams in UK, Scandinavia, and on the continent. I'm familiar with the legal constraints we had with asking employees to work beyond their typical office shifts.

Ask the nurses or the police in France if they get paid or compensated in any ways for their overtime or if they take their 5 weeks of paid vacation, you will be surprised.
As to the private sector these rules only apply to non executive positions and they are far from being enforced.

But I’m also very aware that the bay area employment market does not reflect the rest of USA. Tech jobs are a kind of their own with high salaries, unlimited paid time off, no clock and not much to be accountable for. I agree that the lower (or expendable) your position on the ladder the less rights you get since nothing is ruled by the government.

My commute here during the week is around an hour a day, on Friday it falls down to 20mn, the 3 days weekend is quite strictly observed, I have never seen that in France !

Look, I get where you’re coming from, but Barry has had his chance. He actually had several, first with the Phil refunds where accusations of improprieties were first raised, then he got a second chance when he lied about the circuit boards and stopped issuing refunds, now he’s getting a third chance by selling EA games to new customers... how many chances are you going to give this guy? Why will this time it be different?

If you follow the narrative DP has spun, Barry has had several decisions which could have brought EAs their games. He could have ponied up more money per game. He could have given ARA a controlling stake in their business. It seems like several of his major decisions have actually made it less likely, not more , to get EAs their games.

And it does matter how long he tries. Every day he’s trying at what will probably be impossible, he’s burning more value, more licensor patience. There’s IMHO ample evidence Barry doesn’t have what it takes business knowledge wise to get these games made with the resources he has. I don’t know why I’d believe different based on the evidence other than wishful thinking.

You're never going to get a pin. Stop buying their BS. It's over. If they make any more games you can be sure none of the money will go to making games for EAs. Did you hear the part where they laughed off lying about the board problem? They want you to believe there's hope so you'll stand aside while they take their parts and license and sell games for $12,500 to new customers. No one in their right mind believes this will all work out. And how many TBLs do you think will sell at $12,500 if everyone thinks they will continue to roll off the line? Even if the rest of the plan was believable, scarcity is what made this game valuable. No one is going to buy an unreliable game without warranty from this company for that price if they somehow do manage to resume production. They entire plan is ridiculous.

One of my colleagues in Germany asked me today if we had a "Bank Holiday" or something yesterday. He seemed annoyed that we had a long weekend. He just got back from his 2nd two-week Summer Holiday stint. Not to mention the five Bank Holidays our European colleagues have had so far this year.

I feel bad that these guys dicked you and others over.

I didn’t get the sense from the interview that Barry really gives a shit about any of you and the thousands of dollars you have lost. Him “attempting” to resurrect this company is all about him and if people are willing to give him more money he will piss it all away again and those people will have nothing to show for it.

Unfortunately you will probably NEVER get your game. He needs some sort of angel investor will shit tons of money that aren’t worried about recouping any of their investment to save this thing. Even then at best it’s a maybe you would see your game

Is Barry and the other crook offering Cactus Canyon or other CONversion kits right now?

I think I must have listened to a different interview. It seemed clear from the interview that he could have walked away from the whole thing many times. After they lost the lawsuit he was about to walk away, but decided to give it one more shot and speak to ARA directly. He also mentioned that if the company had gone bankrupt, he would have been personally protected by Dutch law but he wanted to see it through. He also said that he had been contacted by several parties wanting to buy the company, but they all wanted to "cut the EAs loose", so he turned them down. I got the impression that he genuinely wants to get the EAs their games.

From a VERY well informed source I can guarantee you that this is NOT true. There was a party at the table that had an offer that included delivery to the EAs first at no or a limited (1 to 2k) cost.

This sounds like a stretch. Who would make a financial decision to ship $1.75M in games for $140,000, before even making a profit?! Sounds like a terrible investment! I seriously doubt anyone that is rich enough to do so would be rich in the first place with business decisions like that! Anyhow, Barry didn’t want to sell his company. It’s his baby and now completely falls on him. I hope he is successful, and if that devalues TBLs currently out there, that’s not a bad thing. I’d love to see another successful pinball company.

I agree to the posts above about stop being negative and rooting against this. Sounds like the guy has some unfinished business to take care of and wants to eventually settle up with the people he has wronged. IF this game can be made that's a big fuckin win. I would be a buyer even at 12.5 if this becomes stable and not a gamble. I'm sure there would be more considering they easily got 50 to step up to the plate. Once a few games starting rolling maybe this thing could have the legs to take off.

No one is rooting against it; they're just rightfully tired of rooting for it.

My impression was that pretty much the only reason he's persevering with this nightmare is because he does want to make the EAs whole... when he was speaking about this it felt like it was a very genuine statement... I think it's clear that the easiest route for him would be to pull out and ditch the whole project, but because he does care about the EAs, his staying in. Obviously he made some very bad decisions, but each time there was no malice behind them... lying about the boards was to try and prevent panic... and he obviously regrets that, as he clearly said in the interview...

Then possibly say nothing at all.

Barry does say in the interview that he regrets the decision to lie about the boards being a problem and he does apologize at the end of the podcast about the situation.

I'm not so sure about that. He said he was willing to pay more per game with the condition that ARA make a certain amount of games by the end of the year because they had a history of missing deadlines, they would not agree. Would giving ARA a controlling stake have brought the EAs their games? Only ARA knows what their intentions were in making this offer, perhaps they wanted to dissolve the company and pay themselves the outstanding monies.

Only say positive things about this dumpster fire got it.

If you would listen really to what he is saying around 1:27:30 you would hear that he is saying ALMOST everyone of them ......

so if there was such an offer on the table (with likely many many strings attached) he is not lying in the podcast as he clearly DIDN’T say All of them ....

Folks pls listen carefully befor another false story is leading his own life.

I think a fundamental question here is if he needs capital up front ( pre-order $ for the upcoming 500 machines), or he plans on selling them after they are assembled. I bet there would be some people willing to pay up front who have no knowledge of this dumpster fire, but there is zero chance I would give any money to this guy unless I saw the machine in the box ready to be shipped to my house. I really want to own TBL some day and hope he succeeds, but rational thought is getting in the way. I think this guy has a tremendous mountain to climb to sell 500 at what is basically the ceiling price for a NIB pinball.

I had 2 questions that were not answered (or asked) in the interview:

1. What happened to the 1.5 million dollars +- that DP received from EA’s?

2. What did the judge see in the evidence that made her side 100% with ARA?

When Barry was asked if DP paid for the first 50 EA machines that shipped he side stepped the question and said something about paying some money for R&D, that sounds like a no! The first 50 games were never paid for.
180+ games that DP received $1,530,000 from EA’s for.. where’s the f#cking money DP?

So I am guessing Cointaker already has a list going for these hypothetical next set 400-500 of games. Does anyone know how long that list currently is? What sort of deposit (if any) is required?

It's kind of astounding how vapid his memory is. A lot of weasel "I think...?" / "My memory not so good" / "Um well kinda" type statements. You'd think someone put through the wringer for the last 5 years and coming fresh off a legal case would have better, refreshed memories of a lot of these things. Hell, the interviewers seemed to feed him "talking point answers" just to keep dialogue moving.

But one moment that stood out, was when they discussed the original markup that ARA tried to claim. Paraphrasing:

Interviewer: "So when ARA said the games were too expensive and demanded more money, what was the amount they wanted additional? Was it $1000?"
Barry: "(laughs) hah, well I don't want to discuss it, but that's the number that's been out there"
Interviewer: "Well that number came from a DP newsletter in the first place!"
Barry: "Oh did it? Hah I guess you're right. OK sure then. It was close to 1000".

Outright malice at worst, or serial incompetency at best.